Saturday, January 25, 2020

Judith Butler Gender Performativity Cultural Studies Essay

Judith Butler Gender Performativity Cultural Studies Essay The challenge presented by Butlers theory depicted in Gender Trouble is derived from her revision of the generally established orthodox assumptions in our western society regarding gender and sexual identity. She attacks the accepted naturalness of gender and reveals it as the fiction that it essentially is. According to Butler, the actions that are associated with a persons sexual identity are not a reflection of someones innermost self but rather culturally coded acts. Butlers theory is primarily based upon the philosophical views of the French theorist Renà © Descartes that a persons conception of his own identity is essentially dualistic. Descartes claimed that a persons process of self-identification transpires by making a clear distinction between the body and the mind. The essence of this opposition is that the body is in fact perceived as inferior to the mind. The basis of this claim is exactly what Butler intends to reverse, namely that a persons everyday behaviour reflects his or her gender and sexual identity and is essentially a reflection of that persons individual psyche. Her provocative argument that gender is merely a stylized repetition of acts essentially implies a form of materialism that negates any possibility of a spiritual explanation of self-identity. Unlike Luce Irigaray, Butler refutes the notion of sex as a naturally established category. Butler argues that alongside gender, sex is also an acquired socio-cultural category. Butler argues that the construction of gender and sexual identity emerges out of culturally and socially established practices. These practices, including their discourse, have their own recorded history as well as their own social and political dynamics. Furthermore, Butlers criticism of Irigaray is essentially that Irigarays Womans natural state is outside of the phallocentric economy. In her influential book Gender Trouble (1990), Butler does not offer an ontological or essentialist description of what it is to be a woman (Butler, 32). Instead she presents the argument that the traditional power structures of our society in fact create the very identities that it regulates. These power structures are essential to the notion of sexuality. Butler claims that sexuality does not have a natural state where powe r later comes in to disrupt that state. According to Butler, sexuality does not exist outside of power. It is for this reason that Butler does not present any ontological arguments. For Butler, the concern with the ontology of a woman is simply a misrecognition of some ontological core for what is merely a series of repetitions. The essence of gender is a matter of repetitions. Butler ascripes power to regimes as in the power regimes of heterosexism and phallogocentrism seek to augment themselves through a repetition of their logic . . . (Butler, p.32). Consequently, if repetition is bound to persist as the mechanism of the cultural reproduction of identities, then the crucial question emerges: what kind of subversive repetition might call into question the regulatory practice of identity itself? (Butler, p. 32). This question is directly relation to the core argument that Butler presents in Gender Trouble. In other words, Butlers understanding of gender as performative is grounded in her belief that the very core of gender identity is produced through the repetition of behaviour. She talks of repetitions in which the subject is neither outside of those repetitions nor that the subject is something internal which is expressed through those repetitions. So much as the repetitions themselves are the very mechanisms by which those identities are reproduced and the very positive concepts of identities are brought forward. In addition to this ground-breaking claim, Butler introduces the concept of gender as a performance or gender performativity. In discussing this notion of gender performativity, Butler stresses the importance of the distinction between performing a gender and gender as a performance. When she talks about gender as performative, Butler argues that this is not similar as saying that gender is performed. When we say that we perform a gender weve taken on a role, were acting or role-playing in some way. This performance of a rule is definitely crucial to the gender that we are and the gender that we present to the world. Nevertheless, it is very different from what she means by gender performativity. For something to be performative means that it produces a series of effects. We act and walk, speak and talk in ways that consolidate the impression with being a man or being a woman. Butler explains that in our modern-day society people act as if being of a man or being of woman is actually an internal reality or in fact something that is simply true about us. Instead it is a phenomenon that is produced and reproduced all the time. Butler claims that no person is born with a fixed gender. Gender is not to be perceived as a manifestation of a subjects internal essence. Alternately, one should view gender identity as a produced product of our actions and discourse. That is to say, Butler argues that everyday actions, speech, utterances, gestures and representations, dress codes and behaviours as well as certain prohibitions and taboos all work to produce what is perceived as an essential masculine or feminine identity.  [1]   By introducing the notion of gender performativity, Butler criticizes the traditional power structures whose agenda is to keep people in their socially accepted gendered place. Institutional powers like psychiatrical normalization intend to prevent the disruption of the established gender norms. Butler questions how these institutions are established or whether they ought to be policed. She insists on the historical and cultural foundation of these institutional powers and emphasizes the importance of overcoming this silent gender police function that the institutional powers project. Furthermore, Butler expresses her desire to resist the violence that is opposed by ideal gendered norms against those who are non-conforming in their gender presentation. In the final chapter of Gender Trouble Bodily inscription, Performative subversions, Butler gives the important inner-outer distinction regarding our notions of gender the attention which it merits. Butler argues that in the orthodox view of gender the figure of our inner soul is inscribed on the outer body. However, these inscriptions on the body or the outside create the illusion of a concrete and organized gender core. Thus, what makes this problematic is that so far we have gained our understanding of our own inner essence through the inscription on the body. To support her own theory, Judith Butler adopts the argument made by Foucault in his influential work Discipline and Punish that the suffering imposed on prisoners is, contrary to western belief, externalized. The oppression of the prisoners is not manifested in the inner soul but rather on the external body. Foucault argues that since the methods of punishment used by the agents of the institutional power are inflicted on the body, these actions similarly justify the institutes control over the prisoners body. Butler engenders Foucaults argument and claims that gender is fundamentally the principal representative of western cultural society which operates on the external body, and in this process formulates the definition of masculine or feminine, in addition to standardizing the image of heterosexuality.

Friday, January 17, 2020

Alcohol Advertising

The world of advertising is exciting and diverse. It has the ability to influence society to follow certain trends or ideas. Every where you look there is some form of advertising. From television to radio, magazines to billboards, product advertising is a large factor in what we do. Alcohol advertising is one of the largest branches of advertising. Millions of dollars each year is spent to advertise alcohol. The ads use tactics to incite people to use their product. Many times people are shown smiling and having a good time. Other ads have shown beautiful women talking to plain guys because the guy was drinking a certain type of beer. Focusing on one ad in particular is the Absolut Vodka advertising. The ad uses popular trends combined with the vodka product to produce a pun on that certain trend. The ads tend to be very funny and sometimes make a bold statement. The Absolut Vodka ads are so popular that there was a book published with a collection of all the ads. The Absolut ads tend to appeal to younger demographics. The ads are cutting edge and exciting. They are often funny or make fun of serious issues. Young people are incited by these ads because they are different and bold. The ad also promotes the ideal that if you drink Absolut Vodka you too will be bold and exciting. In this advertisement for Absolut Vodka the bottle is an image of bags with a train background. The meaning of most Absolut Vodka ads is political. The meaning of this advertisement has to do with Sweden years ago. The ad also gives the viewer the idea if you drink Absolut Vodka you will move up in the world. It also presents the ideas of going places and of a high status. Personally this ad does not make myself want to go out and drink. I think this particular ad might be focused at an older audience. The cool looking design of the bottle in all of the Absolut Vodka advertisements does appeal to the eye and many young viewers. Alcohol advertising plays a major role in underage drinking. The fun and exciting ad? s appeal to young people inciting them to drink. Alcohol advertising should be banned from the younger adult set magazines and not also should not be aired on television channels directed at the younger set. I think that this would greatly help reduce the statistics of underage drinking. Alcohol advertising is not just selling alcohol its selling trouble.

Thursday, January 9, 2020

The Rape and Murder of Sarah Goode

In the summer of 2014, petite, 21-year-old Long Island mother and medical technician Sarah P. Goode disappeared. Her partially decomposed body was found in a wooded area about a week later. The resulting autopsy and criminal investigation revealed Goode had been brutally raped and stabbed to death by a man whose sexual advances she had earlier rejected at a party.   Search for the Missing Mom On June 8, 2014, Goodes family called Suffolk County police Sunday to report her missing. She had not been seen for two days. The family began passing out fliers and neighbors pitched in to search. The next day, Goodes gray 1999 BMW was found parked in a wooded area in Medford, not far from the home Goode shared with her mother and 4-year-old daughter. Although the car had not been broken into, police said it was found under suspicious circumstances. Suffolk County Detective Michael Fitzharris would not comment on those circumstances, nor did he reveal whether or not Goodes personal belongings had been found in the car. This is a 21-year-old gainfully employed Long Island girl. Everyone has to have their vehicle out here, Fitzharris told reporters. For her family to not see her for a few days †¦ we take that very seriously. It was later learned that police had discovered clumps of hair and blood inside the vehicle. Using K-9 units, police swept the wooded area where Goodes car had been found. On June 12, 2014, almost a week after shed vanished, a group of searchers found her body in the woods within a mile of the site where  her  abandoned car had turned up the day after shed been reported missing.   Killer Charged   On July 12, 2014, Dante Taylor, a 19-year-old former Marine from Mastic, Long Island, whose advances Goode rejected at a party theyd both attended was arrested in connection with her murder. A bloody handprint in Goodes car and text messages between him and Goode on the night she went missing linked Taylor to the murder. Taylor was arrested but later released after it was learned that police had taken fingerprints, DNA, and cellphone evidence without probable cause and had questioned him without reading him his rights. He was arrested again a month later on unrelated charges in Vero Beach, Florida, and extradited for trial. Taylor was arraigned on murder charges in a Central Islip courtroom. As prosecutor Janet Albertson described the events surrounding Goodes death, about 50 of her family members were present in court, some responding to the horrific details in vocal anguish, others in verbal taunts. Goodes brother-in-law was removed from the courtroom. Albertson described the gory scene police found inside of Goodes blood-soaked car. She went on to present evidence that Taylor had brutally raped Goode and had subsequently beaten her so badly with a sharp metal object that a piece of metal had been found embedded in her skull. Goode had been stabbed more than 40 times. After she was dead, Taylor dumped Goodes body, nude from the waist down, in the woods. Police and Prosecutorial Misconduct Tarnish Conviction During the trial, the prosecution was sanctioned by state Supreme Court Justice John Collins for withholding evidence from the defense that included a series of Crime Stoppers tips pointing to other potential suspects. It was also learned that police destroyed a threatening message from a boyfriend with whom Goode had recently split up. Nevertheless, Taylor was found guilty of first- and second-degree murder, and attempted rape in the first degree in the death of Sarah Goode and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Convicted Killer Dies in Prison On October 2017, the 22-year-old convicted killer was found dead at the Wende Correctional Facility near Buffalo, New York, where he was serving his life sentence. Goodes family responded to the news with a Facebook post, which read:   â€Å"The monster who so violently ended Sarah’s young life will no longer breathe another breath, will no longer see another day, will no longer have the privilege of living a life—something he made certain she could not do. Sarah’s beauty is eternal. Her laugh is unforgettable. Her memories are carved in the hearts of all whom she met.† However, Taylors trial attorney, John Lewis Jr., insisted that his clients conviction was a travesty and a perversion of justice, stating: â€Å"It’s a tragedy. His death is just another injustice in a string of injustices. I just hope someone is held accountable for his death. Now Suffolk County will not be held accountable for the injustices it committed in getting his conviction.† Sources Landau, Joel. Long Island Police Searching for Missing 21-Year-Old Mother of 4-Year-Old Girl. New York Daily News, June 9, 2014 Tracy, Thomas. Body Found in Long Island Woods Is the Missing Mom of 4-Year-Old Daughter. New York Daily News, June 13, 2014Nolan, Caitlin and Brown, Stephen Rex. Family of Murdered Long Island Mom Weep, Shout as Accused Killer Appears in Court.  New York Daily News, July 14, 2014Fuller, Nicole and Smith, Andrew. Dante Taylor, Convicted Killer, Dies in Prison, Officials Say. Newsday, October 9, 2017

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Buena Vista Social Club

The Buena Vista Social Club (BVSC) is a multi-faceted project that sought to revitalize a traditional Cuban genre, called son, which had its heyday from the 1920s to the 1950s. BVSC includes various media, including recorded albums by various artists, a celebrated documentary by Wim Wenders, and many international tours. The BVSC was initiated in 1996 by American guitarist Ry Cooder and British world music producer Nick Gold and was chronicled in Wim Wenders 1999 documentary. The BVSC has had a major impact on the Cuban tourism industry, as many neo-traditional son groups have been formed in the past two decades to cater to the desires of tourists to hear similar music. If something like this happened today in the U.S., it would be akin to Chuck Berry and Elvis tribute groups springing up all over the country. Key Takeaways: Buena Vista Social Club Buena Vista Social Club revitalized the traditional Cuban genre called son, which was popular between the 1920s to the 1950s, introducing it to a contemporary audience.BVSC includes recorded albums by various artists like Compay Segundo and Ibrahim Ferrer, a documentary by Wim Wenders, and international tours.BVSC has been a major draw for the Cuban tourism industry, and new son groups have been formed to cater to tourists.Although BVSC is beloved among international audiences, Cubans—while they appreciate the tourism it brings in—are notably less interested in or enthusiastic about it. Cubas Musical Golden Age The period between 1930 and 1959 is often spoken about as Cubas musical golden age. It began with the rumba craze that was kicked off in New York in 1930 when Cuban bandleader Don Azpiazu and his orchestra performed El Manicero (The Peanut Vendor). From that point on, Cuban popular dance music—specifically the genres son, mambo and cha-cha-cha, which each have distinct features—became a global phenomenon, circulating to Europe, Asia, and even Africa, where it eventually inspired the emergence of Congolese rumba, now known as soukous. The name Buena Vista Social Club was inspired by a danzà ³n (a popular Cuban genre in the late 19th and early 20th centuries) composed by Orestes Là ³pez in 1940 that paid homage to a social club in the Buena Vista neighborhood, in the outskirts of Havana. These recreational societies were frequented by black and mixed-race Cubans during a period of de-facto segregation; non-white Cubans werent allowed in at the high-end cabarets and casinos in which white Cubans and foreigners socialized. Exotic dancers at the Tropicana nightclub in Havana, Cuba, circa 1955.   Archive photos / Getty Images This period also marked the height of American tourism to Cuba, as well as the famed nightlife scene centered on casinos and nightclubs like the Tropicana, many of which were funded and run by American gangsters like Meyer Lansky, Lucky Luciano, and Santo Trafficante. The Cuban government was notoriously corrupt during this period, with leaders—particularly dictator Fulgencio Batista—enriching themselves by facilitating American mafia investments on the island. Batistas regime of corruption and repression fostered widespread opposition and eventually led to the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, led by Fidel Castro, on January 1, 1959. Casinos were shuttered, gambling was prohibited, and Cubas nightclub scene effectively vanished, as they were seen as symbols of capitalist decadence and foreign imperialism, the opposite of Fidel Castros vision for building an egalitarian society and sovereign nation. The recreational clubs frequented by people of color were also outlawed after the Revolution banned racial segregation, since they were believed to perpetuate racial division within society. Buena Vista Social Club Musicians and Album The BVSC project began with bandleader and tres (a Cuban guitar with three sets of double strings) player Juan de Marcos Gonzà ¡lez, who had been leading the group Sierra Maestra. Since 1976, the group has aimed to pay homage to and preserve the son tradition in Cuba by bringing together singers and instrumentalists from the 1940s and 50s with younger musicians. The project received little support in Cuba, but in 1996 British world music producer and director of the World Circuit label Nick Gold caught wind of the project and decided to record a few albums. Gold was in Havana with American guitarist Ry Cooder to record a collaboration between Cuban and African guitarists like Ali Farka Tourà © of Mali. However, the African musicians were unable to obtain visas, so Gold and Cooder made the spontaneous decision to record an album, Buena Vista Social Club, with the mostly septuagenarian musicians gathered by de Marcos Gonzà ¡lez. Cubas Buena Vista Social Club, Compay Segundo and Omara Portuondo (seated L-R), (standing L-R) Guajiro Miraval, Orlando Cachaito Lopez, Barbarito Torrez, Juan de Marcos and Ibrahim Ferrer, posing for photographers at a hotel in Mexico City before a press conference.   Jorge Uzon / Getty Images These included tres player Compay Segundo, the oldest musician (89) at the time of recording, and vocalist Ibrahim Ferrer, who had been making a living shining shoes. Vocalist Omara Portuondo was not only the sole woman of the group, but also the only musician who had enjoyed a continuously successful career since the 1950s. Its important to point out that as a revitalization project, the initial BVSC album didnt sound exactly like the music played in the 1930s and 40s. Ry Cooders Hawaiian slide guitar added a particular sound to the album that didnt exist in traditional Cuban son. In addition, while son has always been the foundation of BVSC, the project also represents other major Cuban popular genres, specifically bolero (ballad) and danzà ³n. In fact, there are an equal number of sones and boleros on the album and some of the most popular—i.e., Dos Gardenias—are boleros. Documentary and Additional Albums The album won a Grammy in 1998, cementing its success. That same year, Gold returned to Havana to record the first of several solo albums, Buena Vista Social Club Presents Ibrahim Ferrer. This would be followed up by roughly a dozen solo albums featuring pianist Ruben Gonzà ¡lez, Compay Segundo, Omara Portuondo, guitarist Eliades Ochoa, and several others. German filmmaker Wim Wenders, who had previously collaborated with Ry Cooder, accompanied Gold and Cooder to Havana, where he filmed the recording of Ferrers album, which was the basis for his celebrated 1999 documentary Buena Vista Social Club. The rest of the filming took place in Amsterdam and New York, where the group played a concert at Carnegie Hall. Cuban Singer Omara Portuondo (Buena Vista Social Club) performs on stage at Concertgebouw on April 17 2001 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Frans Schellekens / Getty Images The documentary was a huge success, winning numerous awards and being nominated for an Academy Award. It also resulted in a major boom in cultural tourism to Cuba. Dozens (and likely hundreds) of local music groups have sprung up all over the island in the past two decades to cater to tourists desires to hear music that sounds like BVSC. This is still the most common type of music heard in tourist zones in Cuba, although its listened to by a very small segment of the Cuban population. The surviving members of BVSC performed an Adios or farewell tour in 2016. Worldwide Impact  and Reception in Cuba Beyond driving cultural tourism to the island and performing all over the word, BVSC has increased the global consumption of Latin American music beyond Cuba. It has also meant international visibility and success for other Cuban traditional music groups, such as the Afro-Cuban All Stars, still touring and led by de Marcos Gonzà ¡lez, and Sierra Maestra. Rubà ©n Martà ­nez writes, Arguably, Buena Vista is the crowning achievement, thus far, of the world beat era in both critical and commercial terms... it avoids the pitfalls of the same: exoticizing or fetishizing of Third World artists and artifacts, superficial representations of history and culture. Nonetheless, the Cuban perspective on BVSC is not so resoundingly positive. First, it should be noted that Cubans born after the Revolution dont generally listen to this type of music; it is music made for tourists. Regarding the documentary, Cuban musicians were somewhat put off by Wenders narrative that presented traditional Cuban music (and Cuba itself, with its crumbling architecture) as a relic of the past that became frozen in time after the triumph of the Revolution. They point out that although the world wasnt aware of it until the opening of Cuba to tourism in the 1990s, Cuban music has never stopped evolving and innovating. Other critiques relate to Ry Cooders central role in the film, despite the fact that he lacks in-depth knowledge about Cuban music and even about the Spanish language. Finally, critics noted the lack of political context in the BVSC documentary, specifically the role of the U.S. embargo in preventing the flow of music both in and out of the island since the Revolution. Some have even described the BVSC phenomenon as imperialist nostalgia for pre-revolutionary Cuba. Thus, although BVSC is beloved among international audiences, Cubans—while they appreciate the tourism it brings in—are notably less interested in or enthusiastic about it. Sources Moore, Robin. Music and Revolution: Cultural Change in Socialist Cuba. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006.Roy, Maya. Cuban Music: From Son and Rumba to the Buena Vista Social Club and Timba Cubana. Princeton, NJ: Markus Weiner Publishers, 2002.Buena Vista Social Club. PBS.org. http://www.pbs.org/buenavista/film/index.html, accessed 26 August 2019.